May 31, 2016

The "New" Video Revolution

After about 10 years of astounding dimness, the online media industry is starting to wake up and realize that not only is television not dead, but the future of online advertising revenue is largely going to come from video. The rush to video among online publishers is approaching hysteria.

Of course, as usual the marketing and advertising industries are marooned on some distant planet and are still yapping about the death of TV. But don't worry, it'll only take them a couple of centuries to catch up.

"We are, right now, in the midst of a digital media upheaval. What was previously conventional wisdom—that a media company with hopes of turning a profit needs, above all, to achieve scale—is being proven false. The new conventional wisdom is that video will be digital media’s savior..."

"The
sinking value of web and mobile page views — heading to an increment
barely above zero — has galvanized a flight at nearly every major
digital media company to a premium video strategy, and even to
television itself."

From Paul Verna, senior analyst at eMarketer,

“While
so much debate has centered on a supposed tug-of-war between TV and
digital video, the reality is that digital video is growing not at the
expense of TV, but because video content is more popular than ever."

By far the bulk of video viewing is still done via TV programming. According to Toby Byrne, president of ad sales for Fox Networks Group, over 90% of video time is spent on “premium” video, i.e., traditional TV shows. And everyone's favorite obsession, millennials, spend 80% of their video time watching TV programming.

Online media publishers are hellbent on stealing consumer video time from television by becoming video content producers. What does this mean to consumers?

It means it's time to put on your hard hat. We're in for an avalanche of bad video.

Oh, and one more thing. According to Digiday, 85% of video on Facebook is viewed with the sound off.

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Ad Contrarian Says:

"Creative people make the ads. Everyone else makes the arrangements."

"Delusional thinking isn't just acceptable in marketing today -- it's mandatory.""Good ads appeal to us as consumers. Great ads appeal to us as humans."

"Social Media: Tens of millions of disagreeable people looking to make trouble."

"As an ad medium, the web is a much better yellow pages and a much worse television."

"Sometimes success in the advertising business is about sitting quietly and letting clients proceed with their hysterical delusions."

"Marketers prefer precise answers that are wrong to imprecise answers that are right."

"Brand studies last for months, cost hundreds of thousands of dollars, and generally have less impact on business than cleaning the drapes."

"The idea that the same consumer who was frantically clicking her TV remote to escape from advertising was going to merrily click her mouse to interact with it is going to go down as one of the great advertising delusions of all time."

"Nobody really knows what "creativity" is. Every year thousands of people take a pilgrimage to find out. This involves flying to Cannes, snorting cocaine, and having sex with smokers."

"Marketers habitually overestimate the attraction of new things and underestimate the power of traditional consumer behavior."

"We don’t get them to try our product by convincing them to love our brand. We get them to love our brand by convincing them to try our product."

"In American business, there is nothing stupider than the previous generation of management."

"If the message is right, who cares what screen people see it on? If the message is wrong, what difference does it make?"

"The only form of product information on the planet less trustworthy than advertising is the shrill ravings of web maniacs."

"There's no bigger sucker than a gullible marketer convinced he's missing a trend."

"All ad campaigns are branding campaigns. Whether you intend it to be a branding campaign is irrelevant. It will create an impression of your brand regardless of your intent."

"Nobody ever got famous predicting that things would stay pretty much the same."